Meridian Magazine

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By Todd Erickson

Fox Home Entertainment will release the first-ever DVD version of the 1940 Twentieth Century Fox movie Brigham Young commencing on July 15^th and will mark the release date with a premiere screening event of a rare film copy of the feature hosted by Brigham Young University that evening. The screening event is free to the public on a first-come, first-serve basis. Showings are in the Harold B. Lee Library Auditorium on the first floor at 3:00 PM and 7:00 PM. Doors open at 2:30 and 6:30. The featured guests at this event are Molly Madden, Vice President-Sales, 20^th Century Fox Home Entertainment, and Todd Werdebaugh, Regional Sales Manager for Fox Home Entertainment. Madden will make the official announcement of the DVD’s availability in stores throughout North America. Dr. James V. D’Arc, curator of BYU’s Motion Picture Archives at the L. Tom Perry Special Collections will highlight the DVD’s special features and introduce the film screening.

Dr. D’Arc played a key role in the Brigham Young DVD project for Fox Home Entertainment. His expert knowledge of the classic film allowed him to provide an in-depth feature-length commentary on the DVD’s alternative track, detailing the historical aspects of the film's production, as well as explaining LDS doctrine and other socio-cultural idiosyncrasies depicted in the movie. “I tried to present a commentary that would be useful for both the LDS and non-LDS audience,” remarks D’Arc. “The commentary is a mixture of behind-the-scenes glimpses of how the movie was made, Church history, some doctrine, and comparisons of the actual trek west versus the movie’s version. It is also a reflection of interviews I conducted with Dean Jagger and with the film’s director, Henry Hathaway.” He also offered Fox the wealth of rare original production and publicity memorabilia that formed the core of the more than 100 images comprising the supplementary section of the DVD.

D’Arc also produced the bonus features the Brigham Young DVD that includes Tyrone Power’s personal script, a Movietone Newsreel of the Salt Lake City premiere event, a letter from Vincent Price regarding the role he played as Mormon Prophet Joseph Smith, marketing materials designed for the film’s original release, and dozens of production photos and publicity stills.

The 1940 Twentieth Century Fox movie, "Brigham Young" was heralded by producer Darryl F. Zanuck as “the great American motion picture.” Zanuck, who oversaw the production of 50 films a year at the studio, only chose to personally produce a limited number of films. In 1940, in addition to “Brigham Young,” he produced “The Grapes of Wrath.” The Fox studio, founded in 1933, specialized in screen biographies and lavish treatments of Americana such as “Jesse James,” “Drums Along the Mohawk,” “Young Mr. Lincoln,” and “The Story of Alexander Graham Bell.”

Zanuck saw the story of the Latter-day Saints being driven from their homes in Nauvoo in a frenzy of religious persecution as being similar to the Nazi extermination plan for the Jews at that time, and hoped that the movie would strike a parallel chord in moviegoers.

Zanuck took great pains to tell the story about Brigham Young and the Saints’ arduous westward trek to Utah as accurately as possible, considering the inherent need for dramatic license in motion picture storytelling. He sought input from Church leaders including President Heber J. Grant and Elder John A. Widtsoe, and the film’s historical advisor, George D. Pyper, who served as the Church’s Sunday School president at that time.

In April 1940, following five months of scriptwriting, Brigham Young went before the cameras for more than two months of intense location production in California, Nevada, and Utah. Veteran action director Henry Hathaway (“The Lives of a Bengal Lancer,” “Down to the Sea in Ships,” and “The Desert Fox”) helmed the film, which included an expensive cast of Fox’s top stars: Tyrone Power as Jonathan, the young Mormon scout; Linda Darnell, a studio newcomer, as Zina, the non-Mormon “outsider”; Vincent Price as Joseph Smith; Dean Jagger as Brigham Young; Mary Astor as Mary Ann, Brigham Young’s main wife; John Carradine as Porter Rockwell; Brian Donlevy as Angus Duncan, Brigham’s adversary for power; and Jane Darwell as Eliza Webb, a Mormon woman killed by a mobber’s bullet.

To top it off, nine-time Academy Award-winning composer Alfred Newman wrote a score that tastefully used the LDS hymns “The Spirit of God Like a Fire is Burning” and “Come, Come, Ye Saints” at key moments in the picture.

Unprecedented cooperation was extended to the Fox studio by President Heber J. Grant, who knew all too well the poor image the Church had been given in more than 30 films made during the silent film era with titles that included “A Mormon Maid,” “Marriage or Death,” “Deadwood Dick Spoils Brigham Young,” and “Trapped by the Mormons.” Grant, who is reminiscent of President Hinckley’s genius in dealing with the public, saw an opportunity to work with Zanuck to get as favorable a portrayal of Brigham Young and the Church as possible. Apostle John A. Widtsoe, of the Council of the Twelve, spent weeks critiquing scripts and assisting Academy Award-winning Fox screenwriter Lamar Trotti on issues of historical background, dialogue, and setting. The First Presidency was even invited to Hollywood for an official reading of an early draft of the script and had lunch in the studio commissary.

The First Presidency was given a special preview in Salt Lake City of the finished film two weeks prior to its premiere. President Grant emerged from the Studio theatre, with Presidents J. Reuben Clark, Jr., and David O. McKay, and declared: “I thank Darryl F. Zanuck for a sympathetic presentation of an immortal story. I endorse it with all my heart and have no suggestions to make for any changes. This is one of the greatest days of my life. I can’t say any more than ‘God bless you.’”

Before the film was released nationwide, it premiered in Salt Lake City on August 23^rd, 1940 at seven different theaters, in what is still the largest movie premiere audience ever, even in Hollywood. More than 214,000 people lined Salt Lake City’s Main Street for the parade honoring Mr. Zanuck and the movie's stars before the premiere. Utah’s governor Herbert Maw declared it “Brigham Young Day.” A specially prepared pull-out section was printed for all Salt Lake City newspapers. Stores were closed and special excursion trains were run into Salt Lake City by Union Pacific Railroad for the event. That evening, following the parade, a gala dinner at the Lion House followed hosted by President Heber J. Grant.

Now, sixty-three years later, Fox Home Entertainment is releasing the DVD version of Brigham Young because they recognize there is a vast LDS audience that would appreciate this movie and all the rich supplemental information that DVD affords movie lovers.

Running through the months of July and August at Brigham Young University is a companion exhibit, “The Fox and the Lion: Darryl F. Zanuck’s Production of ‘Brigham Young’.” The “Fox” refers to producer Darryl F. Zanuck, head of production at the studio. Brigham Young was often referred to as “the Lion of the Lord.” On display are rare specially-bound scripts of the film that were given to President J. Reuben Clark, Jr. of the First Presidency, and George D. Pyper, head of the Church’s Sunday School and technical advisor on the film, by Zanuck. The scripts contain signed portraits of the principal cast in addition to original scene stills interleaved with the complete script. There are only four of these special leather-bound scripts known to exist. Also in the exhibit are original press books, premiere programs, and Tyrone Power’s personal script, with penciled-in dialogue changes in his own hand. Behind-the-scenes photographs on display also reveal how the cricket invasion was filmed as well as the crossing of the Mississippi “ice” on the Beverly Hills backlot of the studio.

SIDEBAR:

Some Interesting Facts about Brigham Young

· 215,000 people turned out in the streets of Salt Lake City on August 23, 1940 for a parade honoring the filmmakers and cast of Brigham Young. All methods of transportation leading into the city were overloaded with parade goers.

· That evening, Brigham Young premiered at seven movie theaters in Salt Lake City simultaneously to an audience of 8,000 moviegoers. This is still a world record to this day. (The movie’s stars attempted to visit every theater that night, but didn’t quite make it).

· The scene portraying the Miracle of the Seagulls was shot on the banks of Utah Lake. You can see the snow-capped Mount Timpanogos in the background.

· Dean Jagger, the actor who played Brigham Young in the film, earned a seven-year contract on the strength of his portrayal in this movie. Incidentally, Jagger went on to win an Academy Award for his supporting role in Fox’s 1950 World War II drama Twelve O’Clock High, and he also became a Latter-day Saint 32 years after the film’s release.

· Vincent Price was so fascinated by the character he portrayed in the movie (Joseph Smith) that he continued to read about him years after the film was released, aided by books sent to him by President Heber J. Grant.

· George D. Pyper, the historical advisor representing the Church on this film, as a young man, actually knew Brigham Young. On-the-set every day of the studio filming in Beverly Hills, Pyper was astonished at how Dean Jagger, as Brigham Young, “walked and talked” just like the man he knew.

· Dean Jagger in “Brigham Young” appeared in more scenes proportionately that did Vivien Leigh in “Gone With the Wind.” He was in 265 out of 315 scenes.

· Frontier Salt Lake City was not shot in Utah, but outside a little northern California town of Lone Pine. The massive Sierra Nevada Mountains, crowned by Mt. Whitney, served as the Wasatch Mountain range.

· The meeting of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young in Kirtland, Ohio, in 1832, was in the movie photographed at Bartlett Lake at Big Bear, California, in the San Bernardino Mountains.